Publications (31) View all
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Article: Why perform a quality or quality-of-life assessment?
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ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to prompt quality-of-life researchers to periodically ask themselves why they are doing what they are doing. I will give you my answer to this question, but also briefly review the historic events that lead to the development of the field. Examining this history should teach each of us that the field evolved from the application of a operations research perspective to the medical care system. As such, more attention should be given to the quality control potential of quality-of-life assessments. I suggest two approaches to this quality control task; the prevention of adverse events and the enhancement of the qualitative status of ill persons.Quality of Life Research 07/2011; 21(4):633-6. · 2.30 Impact Factor -
Article: Can quality or quality-of-life be defined?
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ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to examine the oft-heard concern that quality or quality-of-life cannot be defined. This concern persists today, even in the presence of countless studies that claim to be assessing quality or quality-of-life. There is obviously a disconnect here that warrants some attention, if not explanation. In this study, I summarize the extent of this disconnect and offer a number of potential explanations of why this situation exists. I review the role that operational definitions, statistical and empirical models, and content-specific definitions play in defining quality and/or quality-of-life. I conclude that none of these approaches provide a comprehensive definition of quality or quality-of-life. In its stead, I will argue that quality or quality-of-life represents a distinctive pattern of thinking. I establish this pattern by examining the cognitive-linguistic basis of these definitions and argue that when this is done it will be possible to identify an universal cognitive (hybrid) construct that describes how a person thinks about all types of qualitative assessments. The implication of this is that for a study to claim that it is defining or assessing quality or quality-of-life, it will first have to demonstrate the presence of the elements of this hybrid construct.Quality of Life Research 07/2011; 21(4):625-31. · 2.30 Impact Factor -
Article: Future role of quality-of-life assessment in outcomes research.
Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research 10/2007; 7(5):427-9. -
Article: Comparison of a single global item and an index of a multi-item health status measure among persons with and without diabetes in the US.
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ABSTRACT: This study examined the hypothesis that a single global item can be substituted for an index of a multi-item assessment and lead to equivalent interpretative outcomes. Substitutability would be demonstrated if: (1) the two measures were strongly correlated, and regression analysis showed that the same variables accounted for variation in each measure, and (2) difference scores between multi-item and global scores were close to zero and remained so as socio-demographic and co-morbid conditions varied. A multi-item assessment was constructed by mapping items from the NHANES I Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS), using available data for persons with and without diabetes, onto the health-status classification system of the Health Utilities Index Mark 1 (HUI), creating the NHEFS-HUI. NHEFS-HUI data, when correlated to the self-assessed health status (SAHS) item, revealed a coefficient of 0.55. Regression analyses identified 9 of 14 variables contributed to the variability of each health status index, but differences existed in which variables were significant for which measure. Five of the possible 14 difference scores for persons with diabetes and non-diabetics approached zero. Persons with diabetes had lower NHEFS-HUI scores than non-diabetics. These data were considered insufficient for demonstrating substitutability. Suggestions were made on how optimal substitutability could be achieved.Quality of Life Research 01/2005; 13(10):1671-81. · 2.30 Impact Factor -
Article: Individual quality of life: Approaches to conceptualization and assessment
Quality of Life Research 01/2002; 11(3):293-293. · 2.30 Impact Factor
